‘Arriving at a certain age, there is a different kind of urgency to do things’
Jean-Pierre Cassel
(1932 – 2007)
The Mirror is a body of work comprised of two parts. The images in Part I are static and introspective and examine the intimate relationship between mother and daughter. Part II focuses entirely upon my mother, alone in an empty expanse. The work utilizes whiteness – synonymous with fading and inevitable disappearance. The sequence of four images trace the act of turning – forming a circle that is not yet complete. They are deliberately infused with movement, energy and exuberance – depicting a body still full of vitality – defiantly confronting the inevitability of physical decline. Yet, the faster the motion of my mother, the more of her disappears – an allegory of the hastening of her remaining years. There is a sense of urgency, a stripping down, in the making of these images – a metaphor for ‘time’s relentless melt’ – suggesting that time is not a constant. The less of it you have, the faster it passes.
As in Part I, the presence of the cable release is intentional and significant. Here, it has become a more fragile, blurred, semi-translucent object, signifying the impermanence of the ageing body, addressing issues of mortality and mutability.
Cassel, Jean-Pierre. (2007) quoted in ‘Obituaries’ in The Guardian, 25th April, p.30
Sontag, Susan. (1979) On Photography, London: Penguin, p.15